


Palpable

by westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Angst, Challenge Response, Episode Tag, Episode: s02e20 The Fall's Gonna Kill You, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-05-01
Updated: 2003-05-01
Packaged: 2019-05-31 06:18:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15113555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist/pseuds/westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist
Summary: He needed to know that he was real, and that Josh was real; that neither would vanish in a poof of smoke and mirrors, the way their "real thing" candidate had.





	Palpable

**Author's Note:**

> A copy of this work was once archived at National Library, a part of the [ West Wing Fanfiction Central](https://fanlore.org/wiki/West_Wing_Fanfiction_Central), a West Wing fanfiction archive. More information about the Open Doors approved archive move can be found in the [announcement post](http://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/8325).

**Palpable**  
**by:** Kasey

**Character(s):** Sam, Josh  
**Category(s):** POST-EP: TFGKY, Sam/Josh as old friends, response to the Samfic Archive's "Senses" challenge - 700 words  
**Rating:** TEEN/R (L, Angst, lots o' evilness all around)  
**Disclaimer:** Don't own them, don't sue please.  
**Summary:** He needed to know that he was real, and that Josh was real; that neither would vanish in a poof of smoke and mirrors, the way their "real thing" candidate had 

Statistics suggest that after one is diagnosed with cancer, one only remembers 10% of what the doctor says at that conference. Probably because it's such a life-shattering revelation, changing even the notion of north and south, reality and illusion, nightmare and reality. 

Sam could imagine how that felt. 

He heard very, very little after Leo told him that the President had MS, had been diagnosed...how many years ago? It was a long time, he remembered it was a long time...back before the campaign. Back when he was Governor...and back when Sam himself was living in New York, working as an associate at Gage Whitney and just starting to see Lisa. 

Leo asked if he had any questions - just like a doctor would - and Sam slowly shook his head, then stood as though in slow motion and left the room, wandering slowly through the Roosevelt Room and then past his own, past Toby's office where the older man sat, waiting for him to return. 

He couldn't go in there, he just-...He wasn't about to get emotional in front of Toby. Of all the people he refused to get emotional in front of, Toby was at the top of the charts, tied with Leo and the President. CJ was a little lower, and Donna lower than that - she'd hugged him after Daniel Gault - but there was one person still lower, who he could go to because they'd been friends for so long and had known each other through so much that maybe he could-...maybe he could let his guard down for just a little bit... 

"Sam?" 

Josh found him first, before he could find Josh...damn him. "Leo just told you?" 

Damn Josh, who always knew everything and who couldn't keep a woman for his snarkiness, damn Josh who had smashed his hand and not told anyone, not even his best friend. 

Damn Josh who was his only refuge. 

Sam didn't have to say anything. He couldn't, truth be told, he wasn't sure what there even was to say anymore. He wasn't sure of words or thoughts or sentences or paragraphs...verbs or adjectives or nouns or prepositions... 

I, subject pronoun, have, verb, Multiple, numeric classification or compound noun, Sclerosis, noun. 

Earth-shattering. 

Slowly he entered Josh's office further and closed the door behind him. His eyes darted nervously toward CJ's office, as though she could see through the walls or something but she was already gone and he knew that somewhere in his mind. 

He had to know for certain if it was a nightmare or if it was real; if he would wake up from this or if it would haunt him for a very long time. He had to know one way or another and at the same time he was terrified to find out for sure...and he was about to fall and he needed something or someone to cling to, like a drowning man grabs onto the side of a boat in vain, trying to pull himself back up even though usually he just tips the boat over. 

He would say later, in his own defense, that it was a perfectly manly hug, not to be confused in any way with something pathetic or sissy-like. But truth was he clung to Josh, like a child terrified of a storm or a nightmare, needing to know real from imagined. 

He needed to know that he was real, and that Josh was real; that neither would vanish in a poof of smoke and mirrors, the way their "real thing" candidate had. He needed to feel Josh's strong arms and realize that maybe things weren't as different as he'd thought - he'd held Josh after Noah's death, Josh held him the night Lisa left...it was what best friends did in horrible times of a lack of certainty about what was actuality. 

He needed something palpable. Not ideas or words or sentences, because they had lost their meaning, but something in the here and now. Something he could touch and say what it was. 

Josh. His best friend. Long-time cohort and companion. 

That wasn't going to change, he believed, at least not in the next five minutes...and so for those five minutes, he'd be okay. 


End file.
